Faculty meeting approves new commission

To the Editor:

We feel that The Tech presented an incomplete picture of the
Wednesday, March 20 faculty meeting in its March 22 issue. Some significant
facts which were omitted are as follows. The meeting was unusually well
attended; about 50 students and l00 faculty and administration members were
present. As The Tech indicated, the major issue was the proposal by
Professor Vera Kistiakowsky to form a commission of faculty to study the
effects of increasing military funding on MIT activities.

Professors James Meltcher (EE) and Bernard Feld (Physics) made prepared
statements in addition to those by Leo Marx (STS) and Judith Kildow (OE)
who were mentioned in The Tech. Each spoke from a different
perspective about the relevance and importance of such a study at this
time.

Robin Wagner G spoke for a broad coalition of student groups and
individuals including representatives of the Faculty Committee on
Educational Policy, the Graduate Student Council, MIT Student Pugwash, the
Disarmament Study Group, the Student Ad-Hoc Committee on Curricula, the
Hunger Action Group, the Science, Technology and Society Student Group, and
the Undergraduate Association President and Vice President. Wagner
presented a petition signed by 283 students who strongly supported the
formation of this commission, and called for student membership on the
commission and a role in defining the commission's charge.

An active discussion followed. Associate Professor Emma Rothschild (STS)
commented that the Commission would need to generate new data since many
important statistics relating to the influence of the military have not
been collected since the Vietnam War. For example, it is not known what
percentage of engineers and scientists in various fields are employed in
military projects.

She also requested that the commission document the amount of on-campus
research funding that comes from military sources by department. Professor
James Kirley, Jr. (EE) suggested that the commission include "a few card
carrying members of the military-industrial complex." No one spoke in
opposition to the proposal.

Professor Art Smith, the Chairman of the Faculty, agreed to form the
commission without a vote, and asked for faculty volunteers and
recommendations of members to serve on the commission. Nominations for
graduate and undergraduate participants will be accepted by the GSC and UA.
The number of students will be determined after the faculty are chosen.